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 Tina Connolly is a face painter in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with a husband and a cat. Her credits include Son and Foe and Ideomancer, and she has work forthcoming in Escape Pod and Strange Horizons. She is also a graduate of Clarion West 2006. Visit her website. Also by Tina Connolly: Sufficient Cause The Town Drunk May 2007 |
The mutant werewolf sniffed the air. He could hear a human working in the apartment next door, smell human flesh in the humid Miami air. Was this too close to home? he wondered. Might he get caught, feasting in his own apartment complex? But the Need was too great. He had put off feasting for too long. He must consume Human, and soon. Out into the shadowy hall he stepped, thinking up an excuse to get into the apartment. Perhaps he would affect a snobby accent, ask to borrow a cup of sugar. That usually worked.  Chuck snatched his fingers away from the keys, breathing heavily. Nothing was different. He was still writing the fantastical, not the merely fictional. Anger surged through his brain and curled his fingers. He reached for the bottle of sulfuric acid, ready to summon Mezuel again, ready to yell and scream and damn him to wherever it was you damned demons. But the bottle was empty. His swearing was interrupted by a knock at the door. In the past he would have ignored it, but now there was always the hope that Thea had relented. Sent him a special package, or showed up herself in a tiger-striped négligée—a farfetched hope, but there it was. He went to the door, running his deal with Mezuel over in his head, looking for where the demon had betrayed him. A fiction writer, he had said. Who wrote about stuff that could actually happen. A large, burly man stood in the dimly-lit hallway. “Yes?” Chuck said. Stuff that could actually happen... “What is it?” The man breathed quickly, as if tormented by inner demons. “Pardon me…” he began. It was a reassuring voice, the sort of voice you could immediately trust. Chuck opened the door a little wider. Wait, hadn’t he written... “Might I borrow a cup of sugar?” asked Chuck’s neighbor. Chuck slammed the door and threw the bolt home. His spine was a snake of ice. This was what Mezuel had meant. Writing about things that could actually happen, indeed. Mezuel meant not only to cheat him but to get him started on those 3600—no, count them all—3850 years. His heart thudded in his chest. The doorknob clicked back and forth like a metronome. The virile mutant werewolf was still out there—couldn’t he just make up his mind to barge in? Chuck laughed. It was a shaky, deal-with-the-devil-gone-south kind of laugh, but it was laughter. Of course—Chuck was the writer. He tottered over to his cushy chair and let his knees buckle. Click. Click. How much control did he have over this story? Since Mezuel had made him a horror writer, he had been unable to write litfic. He could control the minutiae of the plot, the trappings—but mostly he just let the pen take him wherever the horror genre muse led. It was a genre that included Hell itself... Inspiration glimmered in Chuck’s head. But first he had to deal with the werewolf at his door. The man slammed the door in his face. Must not have any sugar. The mutant werewolf clicked the doorknob back and forth, figuring the odds. The man was short and pudgy— Hey! thought Chuck. —surely he could overcome such a pitiful human. But on second thought, breaking the door in might call too much attention to himself. Frail, old, trusting Mrs. Cheevy lived in 214. She had once invited him in for Lorna Doones. The mutant werewolf would go there. Chuck leaned back, flexing his fingers. Too bad for Mrs. Cheevy and her shortbread. But it was every man for himself these days. He was out of sulfuric acid—but he knew someone who wasn’t. Time to see how far his power extended. Feed the trusting writer to the virile mutant werewolves, would Mezzy? Chuck opened a new Word doc. “[Insert horrific hook here],” he typed. Then... The Horror Writer pulled his last pint of sulfuric acid from the dusty cupboard, dumped it all into his ex-wife’s ex-mixing bowl, poured in the canister of Secret Ingredients and added a soupçon of dill. As the dill hit the surface, the smoky form of a familiar demon flickered into being. “Really, Mezuel,” said the Horror Writer. “Did you expect to finish me off that easily?” “One can always hope,” said the demon. He shook out an asbestos handkerchief and blotted a drop of acid from his forehead. “Did you call me for anything in particular?” “Rich non-genre,” said the Horror Writer. The demon spread his thirteen fingers and chuckled. “I’m a funny guy,” said the Horror Writer. “I can take a joke.” “Is that so?” “But I didn’t give up 3500 years so you can kill me quicker.” “3600. It doesn’t matter how fussy you are. There’s still only two slots, and they both—” “Both were turned into vehicles for Mark Hamill. I know.” “So if we’re done here...?” The demon prepared to whisk himself back to flame and smoke. “Not so fast.” The Horror Writer grinned, anticipating the shock of his next words. “I’m the writer here, see. And this is all happening in my latest bestseller.” Two of the demon’s eyes widened in realization. It was quite gratifying. “Your carpet was better in your real life,” the demon murmured. “You dare take my writing and turn it into stuff that could happen.” The Horror Writer raised his keyboard menancingly. “I’ll show you stuff that could happen.” “Could happen, not is happening. I didn’t give you that much control.” “You’re here, aren’t you?” This was undeniable. The pudgy balding Horror Writer had that much on the demon. “Only because you could have a spare bottle of sulfuric acid doesn’t mean I’ll bargain with you,” said the demon. “If you think you can write dreck into my purple mouth you’re mistaken.” Blood rushed into Chuck’s face, distending his cheeks. His pudgy figure shook. The demon smirked. “You see? So I’ll just be going. Thanks for the chat. Oh, and see you soon.” He fluttered seven of his fingers at the Horror Writer. The Horror Writer might be pudgy, but he was no mental slouch. “Not so fast. If you’ve turned my writing into stuff that could happen, then I ought to be able to write myself out of horror and into a new genre. Declining sales, bad cover art, stores who won’t face your books—it happens all the time. A redemption arc, if you will. The Horror Writer, faced with deadly peril, turns to a life of—” “Christian Inspiration?” sneered the demon. “You won’t save your soul that easily.” “No, it wouldn’t pay,” said the Horror Writer. “I’ve been studying the market. I’m going into Romantica.” There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the demon started laughing. Tears of blood ran from the corners of his eyes. “What’s so funny?” “No, no, stop,” said the demon, convulsing in and out of flame in his hysteria. “You’re saving me.” His pointed tail lashed the ground as he struggled to control his laughter. “Don’t tell me—you think you’ll have beautiful women dying to have X-rated fantasies with you. Blondes and brunettes, knocking at your door—your ex-wife, even.” “It could happen,” protested the Horror Writer. The demon went into another silent spasm of laughter. The pudgy man ran a hand over his balding scalp. “Not now, maybe. Not with werewolves roaming the halls.” The demon wiped at his reddened eyes. “And here I thought you wanted re, re...respect.” His words were punctuated by sulfurous hoots of laughter. “Oh, stuff respect! I’m talking girls. Anyway, what do you have to do with it? I can write myself into a new career. It could happen. And then those eager, bouncy girls will be things that could happen. You just watch.” “Suit yourself,” said the demon, and he went up in a cloud of cheap cigar smoke. And as the dying sun set on the bloodied remains of his dead neighbor’s curvy young granddaughter, the Horror Writer sank to the ground and swore to dedicate the rest of his career to making women happy. One level up, Chuck leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. Old life out, new life in, and Charla Greenerie would soon be climbing the charts of the hot, young, sex-in-the-city bestsellers list, catering to lusty women’s deepest fantasies. He rubbed his hands together. Thea would see. She’d come crawling back. And now for the payoff. If he was signing over nearly four millennia to the demon, his next four decades were going to be memorable. So what if his office wasn’t much of a love den—the sulfur-stained carpet had seen better days—the nubile young women of his fantasies wouldn’t mind. They’d want him regardless. They were strong and passionate and always up for something just a little bit naughty, those modern girls of the genre. Chair. Word document. ASDF, JKL:. And now the fun part... “I’m leaving you,” said Lea Lander, the hot young editorial assistant clad only in her tiger-striped lingerie. “What? But...” stammered the fat bald guy. “That’s right,” said Lea. “It’s the first day of the rest of my life, and I’m free. My love life is going to change, and the first thing I’m going to do is something I should have done a long time ago. Walk out that door!” “And stay out!” said Rhea Radner, the hot young stockbroker in the half-buttoned black Prada suit and Jimmy Choos. “This isn’t what I wanted!” said the fat bald guy. He clutched desperately at the hem of her pantleg. “Ew! No peeping tom landlords!” Rhea said, and threw her celery martini all over his shiny head. “Why don’t you come back to my place?” said Mia Madder, the hot young starlet with the pink handbag full of dog. “This is more like it,” said the fat bald guy, climbing into the limousine. “Raoul likes to warm up by tying up some guy before we do it.” Mia pointed a pink fingernail at the muscled bulk filling the backseat of the limo. “And, whatever keeps Raoul happy...” The muscled bulk smiled and reached a ham-handed fist towards the fat bald guy. “It isn’t supposed to happen like this,” squealed the fat bald guy. “I’m supposed to be the hero. I’m supposed to be the one getting the chicks.” Raoul’s hand closed on the fat bald guy’s collar. His handsome tanned face, so near to the bald guy’s fat one, was manly and rugged, yet sensitive and poetic. Now on his lips there was a hint—barely a flicker—of a demonic smile. “Nah,” he said easily. “That couldn’t happen.” Copyright © 2006 Tina Connolly << 1 | 2 >> |
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